Mid-Con Tournament: Men's day in review

[ORUTerry]

Mid-Con Tournament: Men's day in review

By MIKE BROWN World Sports Writer

3/8/2006

Player of the Day:

ORU junior guard Ken Tutt scored a game-high 25 points and was named MVP of the tournament. Tutt hit 8-of-12 from the field and 4-of-6 from 3-point range and 5-of-6 from the foul line. He had 64 points in three tournament games.

Quote of the Day:

"We played against Louisville, Illinois, UCLA, Ohio State. If (Larry) Owens, (Caleb) Green and (Ken) Tutt come to play like they played tonight, they can play with anyone."

Chicago State coach Kevin Jones

News and notes

Hospitality: Mid-Con officials have been so impressed by their reception in Tulsa for a second straight year that the city might become permanent host.

"There's been a lot of discussion on it, and we're going to talk about it in our joint council (athletic directors and senior women's administrators)," said Mid-Con commissioner Tom Douple.

The league is already committed to the Tulsa Sports Commission for another two years. Bids for the 2009 tournament won't be taken until the summer of 2007 "and then we can make some decisions about what we're going to do next," Douple said.

Facility first:

Douple said the UMAC is ideal for the league's purposes,

not the least of which is because of the state-of-the-art video equipment that facilitates XO Technologies' Internet videostreaming of the games on in-house cameras manned by Union students.

That part benefits the conference and about 20 students from Andy Erwin's video classes.

"The fact that (the students) get this kind of experience in high school is impressive," said Erwin, former KTUL sportscaster and director of video programming for Union Public Schools and the UMAC.

Expansion talk: The league isn't looking to add new members to its roster of nine but does plan to reconvene its expansion committee "to at least see what's out there," Douple said.

North Dakota State, South Dakota State and Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne are among schools expressing an interest in Mid-Con membership.

Crying shame:

Ron Hunter said last week his Indiana-Purdue men's team had "hit a wall" after winning 13 of its first 14 conference games. He said it again Monday night after the second-seeded Jaguars shot only 33.9 percent in losing to sixth-seeded Chicago State in the semifinals. Hunter meant emotionally as much as physically. The Jaguars used up a lot of emotion. They rallied from huge deficits to win at Valparaiso and Oakland (Mich.) and won five other games decided by seven points or less, including an 80-75 win over ORU Feb. 11 in Indianapolis.

IUPUI lost its final two regular-season games to squander an outright conference title but tied for the first title in the school's Division I history and also had a school-record nine-game winning streak. At 19-11, it would be a shame if the Jags didn't receive an NIT bid.

Attendance update:

After three days, tourney attendance of 10,355 was down slightly from last year's 11,542 but on pace to be the second-highest total since 1994.

Election day:

Precinct 137's polling place in the UMAC was being used for Mid-Con media and hospitality. The polling place was moved across Mingo Road to Asbury United Methodist Church.

Suitable for punching:

Oakland's spirit band was accompanied by a Bop Bag (inflatable punching toy) painted to look like Lou Costello in striped referee's attire.

[tmh8286]

Attendance update:

After three days, tourney attendance of 10,355 was down slightly from last year's 11,542 but on pace to be the second-highest total since 1994.

Thanks for posting this, ORUTerry. I was going to, if you didn't. Obviously attendance was down some, but it wasn't the disgrace that some have felt it was, in my opinion.

While I would have loved for the place to be packed out for every game, the reality is, it wasn't packed out for every game last year.

Not only that, I think that the Mid-Con attendance drop had precedent in the WAC championships held at the JRey in the past. There was a drop in attendance in their tournament after the first year as well.

[MrsSmith]

Also weren't the ticket prices higher this year? I think that was a factor.

[shakespeare]

Thanks for the info. I wouldn't think the other schools would be willing to make Tulsa the permanent site, perhaps more likely on a rotating basis. That being said, The UMAC is an IDEAL facility for the league, every seat is great, the video/sound is great and the size is perfect.

[ORUIsbig]

could the attendance be due to the crowd that followed the Oakland team last year and the fact that there seemed to be only a few chi-state.

[Bogus Smith]

Also weren't the ticket prices higher this year? I think that was a factor.

Although attendance was down, I think that more money was made. It also didn't help that ORU's women were knocked out in the first round which eliminated a couple of larger women's game crowds. It had been stated that ticket sales were up 20%, but it was unclear as to whether that was in "quantity" or "volume". I guess we now know that it was volume.